Nate Kaeding is probably a good two games away from regaining his spot as the most accurate field goal kicker in NFL history.

But with the Chargers' red zone woes, who knows?

Not that he cares.

“It's not very significant,” Kaeding said of being the most dead-eye kicker the game has ever known. “I really, really try hard to not get caught up in relative thinking. ... There are 31 other kickers that can make all their field goals from here to the end of time. All I can do is control the kicks I'm put in front of.”

To that end, the guy has been busy.

Kaeding already has made 11 field goals this season, which puts him on pace to edge John Carney's team record of 34 in 1994.

With the Chargers struggling once they get inside the 20-yard line, Kaeding has made more field goals (eight) from inside the 30 yards than any kicker in the league this season. His 84.6 conversion rate (11-for-13) is tied for tops in the league among kickers who have attempted at least 13 field goals.

For a time Monday night, after making a 50-yarder in the third quarter, Kaeding was the all-time leader in field goal percentage with a success rate of 86.6 percent.

But a miss from 55 yards into the difficult end of the stadium to kick toward dropped Kaeding back down to 86 percent, behind Mike Vanderjagt, who left the NFL after the 2006 season having made 86.5 percent (230) of his 266 attempts.

Kaeding would need to make his next six attempts to pass Vanderjagt again.

While he called the designation of most-accurate “insignificant,” Kaeding considers the description of being accurate to be entirely significant. It's what defines a kicker on an ongoing basis.

“I've always prided myself to come in week in and week out, that's why the accuracy is the thing I hang my hat on,” said Kaeding, who has made 129 of his 150 career attempts. “My thing is to go out for 16 weeks and whatever after that and just be me, be consistent.

“If I sit here 10 years from now and I'm done playing and I'm the most accurate kicker in NFL (history) I'll be happy. But trust me, as a kicker, if you start to feel comfortable, you're in serious trouble.”

In his sixth season, Kaeding is about as level-headed and down-to-earth a kicker that ever walked among the behemoths of an NFL team. That trait, along with a work ethic that has prompted him to enhance and tweak his game pretty much every offseason, is likely what makes him a guy who rarely misses.

Having employed a golf coach, a sports psychologist and worked with strength coaches in past offseasons, Kaeding this past year spent the offseason altering his routine from kicking 100 field goals over the course of a couple of days a week to kicking every day, and he did not attempt a single field goal shorter than 40 yards.

Those moves were an attempt to bolster his consistency and his accuracy at longer distances.

“My big thing is when I walk away from this I want to know — I did everything I could to get better,” Kaeding said. “I sit back every week and after every season and look at my deficiencies. I go out there and plug away at it in the offseason and week to week during the season and try to get better.

“If at the end of the day it's not good enough, if I only play three more games and I'm not good enough, so be it. I'll go home and live on.”

Talking to Kaeding is almost soothing. A computer almost always lit, a book often open at his locker, his outlook on his job and how he prepares for it is peppered with sage tidbits.

He is in touch with reality and its possibilities.

“I am definitely motivated more by failure and going out there and embarrassing myself,” he said. “I always know I could have done better. . . . I also know there is going to be a lot of opportunities where I can make them.”